Chemistry
by Rockstarlet
Summary: Michael Scofield and his boys are breaking out. Tonight. There are just a few changes to the guest list.
1. It's Tonight

Michael Scofield sliced expertly through the frozen earth surrounding Fox River State Penitentiary with the shovel he was gripping and kept his alert eyes fixed on the ground. He watched his own breath - visible in the freezing morning air - as he addressed the group of men working around him.

'It's tonight,' he murmured, 'We go tonight.'

The five inmates, who in reality were listening intently, all wore practiced expressions of indifference, though some more convincing than others.

'Are you sure, Fish?' Fernando Sucre, Michael's cellmate, hissed nervously under his breath. Of all the convicts in their exclusive group, Sucre's complexion had taken on the most alarming tone, between chalk white and the colour of concrete.

'I'm sure,' Michael insisted, 'Everything-'

He broke off as a CO of the prison appeared from behind one of the buildings right next to the patch of land that the convicts were digging.

'Back to work, Scofield,' the guard barked as he met Michael's piercing blue gaze, but he continued to walk leisurely in the direction he was headed, and had soon passed by the men completely.

'Everything's planned,' Michael continued, 'Right down to the last second, if everything stays on schedule.'

'But with _your_ track record, Pretty,' Theodore 'T-Bag' Bagwell cut in scathingly, resting an elbow on his shovel and putting the other hand to his hip in the way he was prone to doing, 'We'd better not bet on it, huh?'

A smirk crept onto Michael's face as he took in T-Bag's mocking expression and he slowly shook his head.

'This time you can bet as much as you want on it, I promise,' he assured them, still smiling.

As Michael followed his fellow inmates back inside the prison from the yard he heard a quiet but urgent voice behind him, and a hand caught his arm. He slowed his pace, allowing John Abruzzi to catch up with him.

'Everything's planned,' Michael repeated for Abruzzi's benefit, 'We're good.'

'No,' Abruzzi shook his head, 'We're not good.'

Michael's jaw tightened, but he said nothing as they passed by two prison guards, manning the front door of A-block, the wing they inhabited at Fox River.

'What do you mean we're not good?' He demanded as soon as they were out of earshot.

'I need a favour from you, Michael,' the older man replied.

Michael saw that Abruzzi's face was not as deathly white as Sucre's had been, but there was a noticeable pallor about him.

'I don't have anything to give you, John.'

'You have that brain of yours, and you've got that hole in the wall of your cell,' Abruzzi said softly, as though Michael might have forgotten, 'And when I think what might happen if you don't do this little favour for me, Michael, well it makes my skin crawl. I mean, you know I need you, but imagine if there just wasn't enough room for your brother on that plane when we get on the other side of that wall out there.'

Michael suppressed a sigh and cast his eyes around as they began to walk together up the metal staircase. These threats that Abruzzi and T-Bag especially liked to occasionally dangle in front of his face were idle, but when it came to his brother, Michael wasn't taking any chances.

'What is it that you want?' He asked, stopping outside his cell and turning to face Abruzzi, resting his back on the bars behind him.

'All I need you to do is make room for one more body to get out of here alive with us tonight.'

Michael let out a disbelieving laugh and shook his head.

'You said it yourself: there's no room for everyone on that plane as it is. One more body is out of the question, alive or not.'

'I know a guy,' Abruzzi said, leaning in so that Michael wouldn't have to strain to hear him.

'A guy?' Michael repeated dryly, raising his eyebrows. He was willing to bet that John Abruzzi knew every guy worth knowing.

'Don't be smart with me, just be smart, all right?' Abruzzi muttered, 'All I know is that this guy is the kind of guy who has everything he could ever want, and he's lost something. Something that he wants back.'

'And what is that?'

'His daughter.'

'Wait, wait, Papi,' Sucre said, pacing the small cell he shared with Michael and distractedly wringing his hands, 'I thought you said that everything was all planned. Down to the last second, that's what you said!'

'It was,' Michael replied from the bottom bunk, his calm, deep voice causing Sucre's to seem even more agitated and shrill, 'It still can be. We just have to make a few changes.'

At that moment, the imposing form of Benjamin Miles 'C-Note' Franklin rounded the corner of Michael and Sucre's cell and inconspicuously installed himself on the wall opposite Michael's bunk, folding his arms and resting one foot on the wall behind him.

'What's this T-Bag's spittin' about the plan being off?' He demanded.

Michael swung his legs onto the floor and stood up to join the other two.

'The plan isn't off,' he told C-Note, 'We're just making a few additions to the guest list.'

'Who?' C-Note wanted to know, his mouth set in a grim line.

'At noon today Fox River are expecting a new arrival. The powers that be are moving a prisoner across state lines and stopping here overnight. They're keeping her downstairs in the old solitary cells, and we're taking her with us.'

'_Her_?' C-Note repeated.

Michael nodded in silence as he crossed to the open door of the cell. C-Note and Sucre joined him as he rested his arms on the uniform yellow safety bar on the edge of the open second floor and looked out past groups of convicts who would settle where they were for as long as they could until they were counted and locked up again until lunch.

'They're bringing a woman to an all male, top security prison?' C-Note asked, his voice still sounding bemused.

'She's the daughter of some _guy_ that Abruzzi knows,' Sucre cut in sarcastically, 'And you just know that he's going to make some serious _dinero_ on this if it works out.'

'Or he might just keep his legs,' Michael added for the sake of fairness, as his sharp eyes darted around the prison, taking in everything in the way that only he could.

'And from what I hear,' he added, 'The best place for this woman is an all male, top security prison.'

From his observation spot on the balcony, Michael could see that the divide between the different races would be clear to even the most innocent of fresh meat in the place, but, for once, there was a begrudging peace among the separate groups inside Fox River and that, he realised, would have to change.

'We need a lock down,' he said out loud, more to himself than to the two men standing either side of him. C-Note and Sucre looked at each other hesitantly.

'You know what happened last time we tried that,' Sucre muttered. After all, who could forget the riot?

Michael turned to C-Note who hadn't disputed the idea, but didn't look thrilled about it either.

'Can you get it done?' Michael pressed.

'Yeah, man, I can get it done.'

'Then get it done, but not before twelve.'


	2. Lockdown

'Lockdown! _Now_!' Roared the Fox River prison guards in one deafening voice.

Michael and Sucre stepped obediently backwards into their cell and watched mildly as the door of every cell in the block slid closed, not to be opened for the next twenty-four hours.

'You've got to hand it to the guy,' Michael remarked, holding his left wrist in his right hand as he checked his watch, 'His timing is excellent.'

The time on the wristwatch read sixteen minutes past twelve.

'What're you going to do, Fish?' Sucre asked from the top bunk.

'At a guess, I'd say the Pope will try to move his Taj Mahal at around five,' Michael replied as he took the familiar metal bolt from its hiding place and quietly began to unscrew the prison issue toilet from the wall, 'Which means that they won't be here for me until then.'

With a slight scraping noise, the metal toilet gave way to a large, man-sized hole in the wall behind it. Sucre slid off his bunk to help Michael move the toilet quietly.

'Right now,' Michael continued, 'I'll go through the wall and down to the old solitary cells. I should be able to get in through a panel in the ceiling.'

'Should be able to?' Sucre questioned, 'What if you can't?'

Michael shrugged, 'Then I guess we go without her.'

His cellmate looked slightly relieved.

'Then get going, Papi,' Sucre grinned, 'I want to find out what this _chica_ is like.'

Michael allowed him a hint of his slow smile.

'What did she do to get herself locked up like us anyway?' Sucre asked over his shoulder as he checked for approaching prison guards through the bars of their cell using the hand mirror he kept under his mattress.

'From what Abruzzi told me, it sounds a lot like she did something a lot like I did,' Michael told him.

'You mean she got herself arrested on purpose?'

Again, Michael shrugged his shoulders, concentrating as his mind flashed through the images of the inner workings of the building that he had religiously studied before he had even seen it with his own eyes. Sucre nodded in silent understanding and rested one warm hand on Michael's forearm.

'Be back soon,' was all he said.

'I will,' Michael confirmed, checking his watch once more before kneeling down to crawl through the space in the wall.

Sucre replaced the toilet in front of the gaping space and blew out a sigh before shaking his head, as though to clear his thoughts, and climbing back onto the top bunk.

Listening intently, Michael dropped stealthily onto the metal grate flooring of Fox River's basement and quickly looked around him in every direction before continuing forwards. With the lockdown in place, he didn't expect any guards to be anywhere near A-block, never mind in its basement, but it wouldn't be the first time one had appeared at the worst possible moment if any chose to do so now. The guards in charge of the prison's newest inmate were another problem altogether, Michael thought as he rounded a corner and came across the door that he was looking for. Edging into the shadows of the basement, he slowly shifted himself until he could see through the pane of frosted glass set into the wooden door. Nothing moved on the other side of the glass: it was all clear.

He didn't expect the door to be locked, but he still held his breath automatically as he grasped and turned its brass handle and let it out in a silent gasp as the door opened for him. With two swift looks right and left, he cautiously began to make his way along the dimly lit corridor ahead of him. He could feel the temperature slowly beginning to rise as he drew further into the bowels of the prison, and further away from any breath of fresh of air.

It was a relief to be able to turn off the exposed, linoleum covered hallway, away from the misleading echo of his own footsteps and the even more unnerving sound of utter silence. The room he stood in now was a huge part of the basement, almost like a warehouse. No one and nothing stirred. Apart from Michael, the place was deserted. He could see the row of doors that he was looking for now. He slowed his pace to minimise noise, and imagined serving solitary confinement time down here. Christ, the heat would get him before the loneliness did.

He stopped under the cover of a large, metal water heater. Five out of six cells sat dark, their shutters closed and no streams of light escaping from under gaps in the doorframe, but the first cell housed a flickering and dying glow, one that could only come from one of the aging fluorescent light bulbs found inside Fox River. He crossed the room in several striding steps, but didn't immediately home in on his target. Instead he walked past the door and slowed to consider the outside wall that ran the length of the last cell on the row: the cell he needed to be inside. He cast his eyes upwards and took in the air vent, set into the cell wall. Michael could easily fit his broad shoulders through the vent. Moving closer to the wall, he stretched up a curious hand and grasped a chunk of dried out plaster which came away more than easily from around the metal grate. Inside his pocket, he swapped the plaster for the bolt he normally used to unscrew the toilet in his cell and, raising his arms again, deftly began to cut the vent from the wall. When he had removed enough to fit his fingertips firmly behind the metal, he pulled with all of his strength until the wall gave a low, breathy groan and relinquished the air vent. He set it quietly on the floor, under the cover of a stack of empty wooden boxes. Low light dripped out through the hole he had created, but he didn't consider it enough to tempt the guards from their lair. That, he supposed, was where the two officers who should have been guarding this girl were now. Lucky for him.

Michael turned his stretched arms outwards and, straightening up to his full height, he slid his hands through into the cell, grasped two handfuls of the wall and pulled himself up to the gap. The vent had been wide, but slim. Michael took in the dingy room as best he could, grunting with the effort of holding himself up. There was definitely a body on the bed in the corner, but from where he was Michael couldn't even be sure if it belonged to a woman or not. In one decisive movement and with a sharp intake of breath, he heaved himself up and through the gap in the wall. Under the circumstances, Michael thought he had made a pretty quiet job of the fall, but on the bed something stirred.

A throaty moan answered his question as to whether or not this convict really was a woman. She rolled over onto her back, her eyelids still heavy, but her sleep much lighter than before. Her right arm was handcuffed to the iron bed stead, but the rest of her was free to unconsciously writhe in a way that made Michael gulp two or three times. He was the epitome of the thinking man, not the feeling man, but there was no thought process here, he just couldn't take his eyes off her. The heat made her skin glow in an unfathomably attractive way, and loose, dark red curls framed her face and fell down past her shoulders. She let out a breathy sigh, causing Michael to blink rapidly as he tried to piece his thoughts back together, standing stock still in the middle of the cell. As if sensing his hesitancy, the woman made his decision for him and slowly blinked open what seemed to Michael impossibly large, blue eyes. She registered Michael's presence and sat up immediately, wary at first. Any number of words, phrases and facial expressions flashed through Michael's mind, but they all sat just out of reach. His silence seemed to strike the girl as amusing and she showed him a tiny smile which filled him with a warmth that he couldn't explain.

'Who are you?' She ventured.

He coughed to clear his suddenly dry throat and then replied dumbly, 'Uh, Michael.'

Her smile grew.

'Michael Scofield?' She asked.

'Yeah.'

'Interesting,' she remarked, 'I've been looking forward to meeting you.'


End file.
